Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Psychosexual Stages Sigmund Freud

The stages

For Freud, the sex drive is the most important motivating force. In fact,
Freud felt it was the primary motivating force not only for adults but for children
and even infants.

It is true that the capacity for orgasm is there neurologically from birth.
But Freud was not just talking about orgasm. Sexuality meant not only
intercourse, but all pleasurable sensation from the skin. It is clear even
to the most prudish among us that babies, children, and, of course, adults,
enjoy tactile experiences such as caresses, kisses, and so on.

Freud noted that, at different times in our lives, different parts of our
skin give us greatest pleasure. Later theorists would call these areas erogenous
zones. It appeared to Freud that the infant found its greatest pleasure in
sucking, especially at the breast. In fact, babies have a penchant for bringing
nearly everything in their environment into contact with their mouths. A bit
later in life, the child focuses on the anal pleasures of holding it in and
letting go. By three or four, the child may have discovered the pleasure of
touching or rubbing against his or her genitalia. Only later, in our sexual
maturity, do we find our greatest pleasure in sexual intercourse. In these
observations, Freud had the makings of a psychosexual stage theory.

The latent stage lasts from five, six, or seven to puberty, that is,
somewhere around 12 years old. During this stage, Freud believed that the
sexual impulse was suppressed in the service of learning. I must note that,
while most children seem to be fairly calm, sexually, during their grammar
school years, perhaps up to a quarter of them are quite busy masturbating and
playing "doctor." In Freud's repressive era, these children were, at
least, quieter than their modern counterparts.

The genital stage begins at puberty, and represents the resurgence of
the sex drive in adolescence, and the more specific focusing of pleasure in
sexual intercourse. Freud felt that masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality, and
many other things we find acceptable in adulthood today, were immature.